Redemption
by BrknLight
Summary: This is NOT a HarryDraco slash. A one shot that takes place several months after Lightning Struck Tower. Harry finally catches up to Draco. Let's see what happens. SPOILERS!


A/N: This is not a Harry/Draco slash. This is a Harry/Draco redemption story. I got this idea from Matchbox Twenty's song _Savior_. Listen to this song, it's amazing. Enjoy the story!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry or Draco or anything related to the Harry Potter Universe. That's all JK Rowling and I love her for it.

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Harry didn't think it was possible to be this lucky. But still, here he was, sleeping in this joke of a room in a run-down Muggle hotel: Draco Malfoy. A boy, no man now – they were all old after that night -- that he had been searching for. There was no one else around, just Harry and his old enemy. But something was keeping him from killing him on the spot, something that he had witnessed only months before, it felt like a lifetime ago.

Draco stirred and looked up at his captor. "I thought I'd be dead when I woke up this morning," he said sitting up on the edge of the small, hard cot he had been resting on.

"Wasn't that what you were planning to do when you found me?"

"Do you want me to kill you?" Harry asked.

"Maybe," Draco shrugged. "It'd be better than living right now."

Harry was suddenly taken back to that night, when Dumbledore had effectively redeemed Draco in Harry's eyes; when the world had ended with his teacher's death. There was so much that had come to light in that moment, so many questions answered and so many more raised and left unanswerable. But one thing Harry was now sure of, Draco could be turned, could be saved. Maybe changing Draco could save Harry, and the people he loved.

"I'm not going to kill you," Harry said resignedly, sitting down in a straight back wooden chair next to the cold fireplace. "But we are going to talk."

"About what?" Draco asked. "Fond memories of Hogwarts? As I recall, we didn't get along too well there and it doesn't look as if things have improved much." He looked pointedly at the wand in Harry's hand. "Will we always be wand-ready when we are in the same room with each other?"

"It's a possibility," Harry conceded. "It doesn't matter now though. I have a lot of work to do and probably should just kill you to have one less person to worry about, but there are some things that I have to know first."

"Like what? The innermost-workings of the Dark Lord's mind?" Draco laughed ruefully. "Sorry but I can't help you there. I got sucked into his scheme just like everyone else did."

"That may be helpful, yes, but not necessary," Harry sighed. "This is about you, Draco, not Voldemort or Dumbledore or pure-bloods or anything, just you."

"Me?" Draco asked confused. "Why me?"

"Do you remember the night Snape killed Dumbledore?"

"How could I forget?"

"Well, I was there. I was hiding under my Dad's invisibility cloak and heard and saw everything. Dumbledore had fixed it so that I couldn't move and was forced to watch and hear everything that was happening." Harry sighed. "I now know why he did that, though I was very angry with him at the time."

"So you heard him call me a coward?" Draco asked coldly.

"No," Harry said. "I heard him say that he believed there was still good in you."

Draco laughed. "That's a funny, Potter. Good. In me? I never thought of you as the joke-making type."

"It's not a joke," Harry said. "As much as I would like it to be one. But I don't know if I believe him. Not yet, anyway. That's why I have to know why, Draco. I have to know why you joined the Death Eaters, why Voldemort let an underage student join in the first place."

Draco sighed and looked at his hands. "Do you really want to know?" he asked Harry.

"Yes, I do."

"It was because of my father," he began, still looking down. "He really displeased the Dark Lord when he let that prophesy smash." Draco looked up. "What was in that thing anyway?"

"We can discuss that later."

Draco nodded. "My father was locked up in Azkaban so the Dark Lord couldn't get to him. He decided to go through me instead to punish him." He shrewdly looked at Harry. "Are you sure you're not going to kill me?"

"I'm not going to kill you," Harry replied.

"Oh well," he shrugged. "If it isn't you then it'll be a Death Eater. Maybe even the Dark Lord himself."

"Why are you going on about this?" Harry asked half exasperatedly.

"Because of what I'm getting ready to tell you. You better not start shouting this about the whole wizarding community. I do have a reputation to uphold."

"Draco," Harry said. "After tonight, that reputation won't mean anything."

"What are you going to do?"

"Just say what you're going to say and let's get on with it."

Draco nodded once and took a deep breath. "I love my father. Strange as that may seem to you. All I've ever wanted was his approval and his love but no matter what I did it never seemed good enough. When he was captured, I went to my mother and told her I wanted to be a Death Eater in my father's place. I thought for sure that this would at last make him love me."

"But?"

"I'll never know if it did or not." Draco's pale face was drawn and wan in the light from the single candle on the table next to the bed. He looked awful and felt even worse. The memory of that night in June kept coming back to him in his dreams. His own mind was never going to let him live with out the pain of his failure and the even worse pain in the realization of what he had almost done.

"Why won't you know?" Harry asked.

"I'll never see my father again, will I?" Draco said as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

Harry let that pass and said, "Please continue."

Draco stood up and started pacing around the small room. "Well, the moment I told my mother my intentions she went into hysterics, of course. She could never understand what was happening between Father and me, she loved me without thought. She didn't understand that he had to be pleased and my love had to be proven to him. But that doesn't matter." He sounded so deject that Harry actually felt sorry for Draco in a way he never thought possible. Despite everything he had grown up with, Harry always knew that his parents had loved him, and he now knew that they always would, even after they had been dead for sixteen years.

"How did you become a Death Eater?" Harry asked.

"The Dark Lord came to me. He said that there was something that had to be done and that I was in the perfect position to do it. He branded me." Draco shuddered and grabbed his arm where the Dark Mark lay. "And gave me very specific instructions as to what I was to do but not how. That was to be up to me.

"But as the year went on and all my attempts failed, I feared more and more for my father's life. The Dark Lord told me that if I failed he'd kill me and my mother and father. Mother had gone into hiding, sort of. She was staying at home but she never went out and never opened the door. She couldn't even trust her sister, Bellatrix, any more because she's completely loyal to the Dark Lord.

"I was a mess and went one day to the boy's bathroom to try and calm down. There I met that ghost, Moaning Myrtle. She would listen to me as I cried, yes I cried, and help talk me through some of the worst days. When you came in that one time and did the spell, I was almost grateful. I wanted to die so I didn't have to deal with anything any more. Then Snape," he spat the name, "came in and healed me."

"Why do you say it like that?" Harry asked. "Snape's name."

"He tried to take me to the Dark Lord, after he had killed Dumbledore. I think he wanted to turn me over to him. I would have nothing of that and separated from him as soon as I could. I wanted to find my father so I went home but the house had been destroyed and my mother wasn't there. I ran." Tears were starting to form in his eyes now. "I don't know where she is or even if she's alive. I've been hiding from the Death Eaters for months."

He looked at Harry who still sat in the same chair with his wand following Draco's every step. "I'm alone now," Draco said. "I never had any real friends at school, only people who obeyed me or feared me. Except Pansy, but I don't know what's become of her now. And now my parents are lost to me forever."

"Is that everything?" Harry asked.

Draco nodded.

Harry stood up and put his wand away. "Alright then," he said. "Let's go."

"Go where?" Draco asked.

"There are some people who want to talk to you."

Draco gave him a startled look then smiled grimly and followed him from the room.

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Draco and Harry apparated in front of a house in London, a house that Draco had never seen before.

"Where are we?" Draco asked.

"This is my house," Harry said. "Sirius gave it to me when he died."

"What are we doing here?"

"I told you," Harry replied. "There are people here who want to talk to you."

They went inside and down a long flight of stairs into a basement-like kitchen. Sitting at a scrubbed wood table were a witch and wizard that looked dirty and travel warn. Both had blonde hair.

"Draco!" the witch cried when they stepped into the room. She ran to him and enveloped him in her arms. She held him close to her and cried. Draco looked stunned as he wrapped his arms around his mother. He closed his eyes and held on just as tightly as she did, tears streaming down his face.

The man stood up and walked to his wife and son. "Draco," he said gravely.

Draco let go of his mother and looked at his father, tears still glistening on his cheeks. "Father," Draco replied.

Lucius Malfoy, one of the most cold-hearted men in the wizarding world, walked to his son and took him in his arms. "I love you, Draco," he whispered with tears in his eyes.

"We don't have a lot of time," Harry said. "A Muggle taxi will be here any moment. It will take you to Heathrow and then a plane will take you to the states. There, a wizard family will pick you up. They have a job set up for you and a place to keep you safe until all this blows over. If you wish to return one day, there will always be a place for you here. If not, I wish you well."

"Thank you, Harry," Draco said stepping away from his father. "You have done so much for me, more than you can possibly know. How can I ever repay you?"

"Live, Draco," Harry said. "I want you to live."


End file.
